The Annunciation of the Lord to Mary

Last updated on: February 16, 2019 at 6:30 am by Ben Hartford

The Annunciation of the Lord to Mary 2019-02-16T06:30:11-05:00 Ben Hartford

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And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

Luke 1:28

A Leonard DaVinci painting. and angel kneels in fromt of a Rennisance-styled Mary.

Mary’s fiat is something we can all learn from.
Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How often are we like Jonah when we are called by God? “Go to Nineveh.” “Those dudes are terrible. Thanks, but no thanks. I’m off to Tarshish.” I know I, for one, am constantly struggling with similar behavior. Mine comes out as “I’m too busy” or “I’m not worthy”.

But here we have our Virgin Mother never saying “No”, only asking “How?” This passage is what is called her “fiat”. It’s from the Latin for “let it be”. As in Luke 1:38, the Queen of Heaven said, “be it done to me according to thy word.”

Just as we learn from our earthly mothers to wash our hands, to be polite, to take turns, so too does our Saintly Mother teach us lessons. Here, she is teaching us the joy of submission. I type this as a hard-charging powerlifter and former paratrooper and full-contact fighter. Submission in those realms are counterintuitive, but I need to submit to the realities of exercise science, to my platoon sergeant, and sometimes to the other fighter by pulling into my guard. And submission to God..? Why wouldn’t you?!

Here was a young girl, barely a legal woman, confronted by a supernatural being, and she says, in effect, “Yeaup. Let’s roll!” She consents to be ruled by her son. She consents to being looked at funny by people who don’t understand. Or don’t want to understand. She consents to losing her son to her own people. But she also consents to a life so full of grace that God’s messenger proclaims it.

God, for whom all things are known, flood us with the water of our baptismal promises. Soak us with the Holy Spirit. Help us to be brave enough to only ever give you our own fiats. With Mary, Ever Virgin, we pray to you, Father through your dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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